Last Week of School

It's so hard to believe that it's the last week of school already! Where does the time go....it's amazing how quickly this year went. We had such a great group of children and they have all grown so much in so many ways! If you have a chance this week, think back to when your child started this year and all the changes you've seen in them. It's been such a positive year with all the developments that the children have made!

We'll be having a lot of fun this week! We hope you can join us for some of it!

Dates this week:

• Tuesday, Preschool Celebration at 1:00 in our Conference Room
• Wednesday, swimming and a picnic at the Mary Virginia-Crites Hannan Park
• Thursday, the last day of school

Thanks for allowing us to work with your children this year. We've thouroughly enjoyed teaching them and playing with them!

Fathers and Mothers Week and Gathering Donations

As we just celebrated Mother's Day and we're preparing to celebrate Father's Day we'll be reading about the family this week. We have great books on the relationships of mothers and fathers and we'll be reading through them this week! We had a great day at the zoo last week and we'll be doing some writing about our experiences at the zoo. We do a shared writing together where we listen to all the children want to tell us about their zoo trip and we write down their thoughts and ideas. We want them to understand the connection between the written word and their thoughts and ideas. We'll read through our writing several times this week as we review what they saw.

We want to thank all the parents that were able to go with us to the zoo as it makes it so much fun to share our day with you and your child! We appreciate you and the time you spent with us last week!

As you might have read in the newspaper, there was a house fire in Orient last week and that was the home of two preschoolers at Brooks-Yates. We are so thankful that they are safe but they lost everything. We are collecting donations and we'll bring them to the family this Friday. The sizes that are needed are:

• Women's bouses and shirts-large, pants-size 10-12, shoes-size 5-6.
• Men's shirts extra large, pants-36 x 32, shoe size-13.
• Girls' clothes, four years old, size 5-6 clothing, shoe size 13.
• Boys'clothes, five years old, size 6-7 clothing, shoe size 1.
• Any toys for a four and a five year old.

You can bring any donations to the school and we'll make sure they get to the family.

Columbus Zoo Week

We're all very excited about the zoo this week. We have been reading a lot of books about different animals that we'll see at the zoo. We've also been reading fun books about animals like the giraffe who is afraid of heights and how he gets over it. We learned what the zoo keeper does at the zoo and now we're ready to see it for ourselves! The new polar bear exhibit is open and we hope to see that too! We're sending home a reminder paper today but if you have any questions please call the school.

We are learning about the letter Yy this week and the number 13. We'll be doing a lot of counting this week as we get up to thirteen. The children are coming along nicely with learning to write their numbers as well. We'll practice writing them in shaving cream this week and that's always fun!

We'll be sending out inviations for our preschool celebration on May 25th and please let us know if you'll be coming so we can prepare our refreshments! We'd love to have you and so would your child!

We've been playing some more group games like Red Light, Green Light in the gym with both classes and they enjoy those and they're learning to listen to the signal changes! It's a lot of fun and we laugh a lot as we're running!

So Much Going On!!

With the zoo trip coming up next week we've been very interested in what animals we'll see, what they eat, where they sleep and learning about what zookeepers do. We have been learning about habitats and what animals live in the different habitats. We have a long list of all the animals that we hope to see next Wednesday.

Please sign the zoo permission slip along with the $4.00 to go to the zoo and send that in with your child. Please pack a completely disposable lunch for your child and we hope that you can join us for this fun-filled day!

We are learning about the letter Xx this week and the number 12. We are able to play on the playground on nice warm days in the afternoons and the children are really enjoying playing with their friends.

Dates to remember:

• Columbus Zoo fieldtrip on May 12th-permission slips due on May 6th.
• Raindate for the zoo is on May 18th.
• May 25th-Preschool Celebration at 1:00.
• May 26th-Swim and Picnic at the Park-please sign the permissions slips and send those in with your child.
• May 27th-the last day of school for this year.